Has a team ever scored twice without the opposition touching the ball?

Plus: Clubs who saved money on managerial leisurewear; the lowest minutes-per-cap ratio; Faroe Islands: after the shock; and what on earth was the Mercantile Credit Football Festival? Send your questions and answers to
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“My name is Aris Moro and I have a question,” begins Aris Moro, who has a question. “When I was younger, my football coach asked me if it were possible for a team to score two consecutive goals without the opposition touching the ball in between. In Fifa ‘05 it was impossible, which is why I said ‘no’. He then proceeded to explain to me that one team can score a goal right before half-time with the referee blowing his whistle right after the goal was scored, and then start from kick-off and score again. It can happen then. But has it ever happened?”

As several readers have emailed to point out, it has indeed. Let’s head back to 23 September 2000. The Tamagotchi craze was over, the Sydney Olympics were in full swing, French Euro pop duo Modjo were at No1 with Lady (Hear Me Tonight), and Wycombe Wanderers welcomed Peterborough United to Adams Park for a mid-table Division Two clash.

The first 45 minutes was fairly uneventful, but then Wycombe’s Steve Brown was brought down on the edge of the area by Jun Cullen. Up stepped Jamie Bates, who crashed the free-kick through the wall and past Mark Tyler in the Peterborough goal. Referee John Brandwood immediatel blew his whistle before Posh had chance to restart. Half-time, 1-0 to the Wanderers.

After the interval 23-year-old Jermaine McSporran kicked off for the home side and headed straight for the Peterborough goal. The defenders, caught napping, let the striker through on goal and he calmly slotted past Tyler to double the advantage. Two goals separated by nine seconds and without the opposition touching the ball.

INITIAL ISSUES

“Upon musing at the trend of football managers having their initials on their jackets or tracksuit tops, I wondered if any manager has been replaced with another who has the same initials, thus saving the expense of new matchday apparel?” pondered thrifty Ed Ginzler last week.

There have been a few. Gareth Southgate, for example, was replaced by Gordon Strachan at Middlesbrough, though as Pete Scarborough points out: “I’m not sure if Gareth’s jacket would have fit wee Gordon, though.” And as Tom Pringle adds: “It was a bit of a false economy on the kit initials though, as Strachan proceeded to spend every penny in the piggy bank on dross before being sacked himself a year later.”

That does seem to be a theme – the savings on matchday apparel initials seem to be regularly offset by spending (or general failure) elsewhere. “Wolves did exactly this in March 1994, replacing popular but limited stalwart Graham Turner (two promotions on a shoe-string, Steve Bull, Sherpa Van Trophy) with Graham Taylor (stagnation, tried to sell Steve Bull, Turnip),” writes Phil Russell. “Although given the transfer budget squandered on the likes of Tony Daley, Mark Atkins, Steve Sedgeley etc I can’t imagine cost savings were high on the agenda when he was appointed.”

David Weir replaced Danny Wilson at Sheffield United in the summer of 2013, and won one game before being sacked after 13 matches. And it was a similarly sorry story at Manchester City in 1984. “As a diehard Manchester City fan I remember only too well the dark days of the 80s when City truly were a shambles,” writes Phil Hammond. “John Bond resigned in 1983 to be replaced by assistant manager John Benson. City were duly relegated, Benson was sacked.

“The following season Bond went to Burnley, Benson followed him as assistant. Bond was sacked and Benson took over from him as manager again. So that’s two clubs who saved on the reprinting of initials - beat that!”

CAP IN HAND

“James Milner has now amassed 52 England caps, but has only played 2,812 minutes, averaging at just over 54 minutes per game,” noted James Hamilton before the game with Scotland. “Has any other international footballer have a lower minutes-per-game ratio? (Let’s say a 10-cap minimum for qualification).”

The 10-cap minimum is fairly arbitrary but pretty essential. Strictly speaking the Liverpool full-back Martin Kelly has the lowest minutes-per-England-cap ratio with his solitary cap earned thanks to an 88th-minute substitute apperance against Norway in 2012. Similarly, the former Derby County winger Kevin Hector has two-caps despite playing only 18 minutes for England, while Stan Collymore has three earned in 84 minutes of international football. England’s other shortest international careers can be found here.

As for those with more than 10 caps, unsurprisingly in these subsitute-heavy times the list is dominated by players of a recent vintage. By our reckoning, Rickie Lambert comes top of the list thanks to his three starts (during which he was twice replaced) and eight substitute appearances. Both he and Ross Barkley have plenty of time to add to those appearances, though, so perhaps the numbers posted by Kieron Dyer, Jermaine Jenas, Alan Smith and Jermain Defoe are the most impressive.

Uni Arge of the Faroe Islands reckons that the country’s biggest win came 24 years earlier. “Probably the biggest upset in football was the Faroese victory against Austria in 1990,” he writes. “This was the islands’ first ever competitive match, and the match was played in Landskrona in Sweden because there were no grass pitches in the Faroe Islands. The Faroese team, which won 1-0, was probably not even ranked at that time, and Austria had just been playing in the World Cup in Italy with stars like Toni Polster and Gerhard Rodax. Today they are ranked 187, but in reality they are much stronger than those remote teams surrounding them on the list. The should probably be ranked between 100 and 130.”

And Eduard Ranghiuc of football-rankings.info has been in touch with an incredibly detailed list of the top ranking-based shocks. “The only result to come close to the Greece v Faroe Islands is a 1996 friendly between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy, which B-H won 2-1,” he writes. “The former Yugoslav country was 170, while Italy were fifth. Thus a gap of 165 spots.”

Eduard’s list reveals that the biggest shock in a competitive fixture involving a team in Fifa’s top 10 is Niger’s 1-0 win over Egypt (No154 v No9) in October 2010, while the biggest shock featuring a team at No1 in the rankings came earlier this year when Poland (ranked No70) beat Germany last month.

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

“What on earth was the Mercantile Credit Football Festival?” wondered Martin Helme, apropos of not very much, back in the halcyon days of 2008.

Destined for a dusty shelf next to the Watney Cup, the Texaco Cup and the Anglo-Scottish Cup, the little-known Mercantile Credit Football Festival was part of the Football League’s spectacular centenary celebrations in 1988. Played at Wembley over the weekend of April 16 and April 17, it involved 16 teams battling it out in a series of 40-minute knock-out matches (a move that meant many games went to penalties - only eight goals were scored in the eight first-round matches).

Nottingham Forest were the winners (and they proudly record that fact on their website). After swatting aside Leeds 3-0 in the first round with goals from Franz Carr, Stuart Pearce and Garry Parker, they beat Aston Villa on penalties in the quarter-final after a 0-0 draw, surprise package Tranmere on penalties in the semi-final after a thrilling 2-2 draw with goals from Carr and Neil Webb, and Sheffield Wednesday, yes, on penalties with Webb scoring the decisive spot-kick, after a goalless draw in the final - all this despite the absence of their manager, Brian Clough. In essence, the tournament turned out to be something of an elongated shoot-out - nine of the 15 ties went to spot-kicks - and the crowd dwindled from a healthy 41,500 on the first day to a miserable 17,000 on day two, but it did provide Forest with a shiny new trophy for the cabinet and £75,000.

It provided the finale, if that is the right word, to nearly a year of celebratory events, one of which was a match between a Football League XI and a Rest of the World XI in August 1987. It was a game that had the Guardian spluttering in a leader column: “Soccer in August is not just an absurdity, it verges on the immoral.” The 60,000 fans that turned out at Wembley to watch two star-studded sides probably disagreed.

CAN YOU HELP?

“Last week Braga’s forward Éder (brilliant small name from his real name, Éderzito) reached his 16th cap while playing for Portugal against Argentina at Old Trafford,” Cláudio Gameiro writes from Portugal. “Although he played a good part in the late winning goal of Raphaël Guerreiro while, inadvertly, passing the ball to Ricardo Quaresma after blocking Adrien Silva’s shot, he still hasn’t found the net on those 16 games. Surelly there’s got to be an worst ratio between caps and goals among other international forwards in the sports history, right?”

“David Meyler was the Republic of Ireland’s captain last week in their 4-1 friendly win over the USA in Dublin,” notes Jamie Ralph. “It was somewhat a surprise as Meyler was winning only his 11th cap for Ireland. This made me think – what player has been made captain of their country in the shortest time after their debut? Perhaps a better way of phrasing this question is: have any other players first captained their country with fewer caps than Meyler’s 11?”

“Sheffield Wednesday have already reached double figures for draws this season after 18 games, six of them being 0-0,’ writes Bob O’Mara. “It would be pretty easy to brand this football purgatory as boring but I’m sure the football hipsters amongst your readership wouldn’t like such a banal generalization. I expect they’re still a long way off breaking any records but who holds the record for the most 0-0 draws in a season in English football? And would it be right to presume the lazy stereotype that an Italian side holds the record for no score draws?”

“In today’s Guardian we can read: ‘[Aston] Villa, who managed to arrive for a home fixture late after their coach got stuck in what Paul Lambert described as “horrendous traffic”, took the lead from their only shot on target,’” begins Robert Sleigh. “My question (apart from why a team playing at home needs a bus) is this: Has a home team (other than Estonia in 1996) ever failed to turn up at a game (at a serious level of football) and what were the reasons?”